


Taboo.

by Anonymous



Category: Riverdale - Fandom
Genre: Abuse, Betty is a psychopath, Cheating, Emotional Abuse, F/M, Femme Fatale, Graphic depictions of violence - Freeform, Major character death - Freeform, More Murder, More Sex, Murder, Sex, dark dark dark themes, graphic depictions of murder, murder againn, physical
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 11:23:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19172287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Death becomes her.





	Taboo.

When he slept she dreamt of blood.

Sometimes it was his, but most of the time it wasn’t.

She’d dream of the metallic taste of it on her tongue. The way it streaked painted lines along the ivory alabaster of her skin. She dreamt of the melodic bubble of it as it gurgled from a fresh wound. The acrid tinny smell of it as the spray permeated the air. Even the soothing act of scratching the rusted flakes from her hands as it dried.

It was always there in the back of her mind. Somewhere behind the neat sway of her ponytail and the properly buttoned line of her cardigan. Somewhere simmering directly under her skin. Hiding in plain  
sight. A monster was masked by a helpful smile. A monster in a black wig and draped in inky lace.

It was tradition.

A family honor that was anchored to the Cooper name with pride.

The Coopers killed.

They may kill for different motivations, different reasons, but they all killed.

Her mother killed for family.

Whoever and whenever she thought the picture perfect image they broadcasted to the public was being threatened.

Her sister killed for love.

Or so she said. Really she killed so that the boy who was too cruel, too out of her league to care that he’d gotten her pregnant and left.

Her father killed for her.

She wasn’t sure if that was right. He said a lot of things, her father. But in the end, it always came back to her. ‘I did it for you. Aren’t you happy? I did this for you.’

And Betty?

Betty didn’t have one sentient reason.

Betty killed men.

She hated men. All of them. She hated their wandering eyes. Their salacious thoughts. She hated the way society held them up on a pedestal while it vilified women for the same behavior. She hated how they were let off the hook for their responses while women were forced to bear the responsibility.

Men lied.

Even her precious, noble, pious father.

All men lied, and she hated them for it as much as she hated them for their stupidity, their callousness, and their inability to see behind the surface to what lay under her skin.

Her first was when she was seven and she killed the neighbor boy because he’d insulted her cupcakes. His father had warned them that the construction site was dangerous. It was tragic really that Archie hadn’t watched where he was going, or he wasn’t more sure footed when Betty pushed him. She’d stared down the scaffolding at his body, broken and bent, eyelashes fluttering, head cocked to the side, but she didn’t feel anything. He looked beautiful all bent out of shape.

His father had found him shortly after, and only then was she able to produce tears, to woefully explain what had happened. They believed her. They all believed her. Who wouldn’t? She was a sweet, little blonde girl with pigtails. She’d never do anything so callous.

Except she would, and she kept doing it.

Over and over.

It didn’t matter who.

Or what.

Or why.

It didn’t matter what they looked like or where they’d been.

If she had the opportunity and the interest, she killed them.

Until him.

When she met him all of that changed.

After him, her victims always had a piece of him. Whether it was too long black hair, a smattering a moles, or a similarly shaped pair of eyes. They always looked like him in some way.

Like tonight. The man in front of her had nothing really that was like her boy. Her precious, beautiful boy. Nothing from the exotic slant of his eyes to the strong cleft to his chin reminded her of him at all.  
The hair was similar though, and that was enough. He was easy enough to get where she wanted him. All she did was blink her doe eyes up at him in the crowded college bar and ask him if he’d like to go somewhere quieter and he’d practically patted himself on the back. He’d shot crude remarks to his friends, draped his meaty arm over her shoulder, and steered them towards his frat house.

She carried her things in her purse, and once they’d arrived at the house he took them upstairs, showing her the bathroom so she could ‘freshen up’. When she came out in the black lace and her wig, he seemed surprised, pleasantly so.

“Damn. I didn’t know you were into some shit. You should have told me.”

“I’m telling you now,” she crooned as she swaggered towards him, pushing him down so that he lay flat on his back.

“You’re a bad girl aren’t you,” he answered eagerly.

She shot him a purely wicked smile as she said with a whole new level of conviction, “The absolute worst.”

She fucked him until she saw stars. Riding him so hard she thought she might have hurt him. Not that she cared. She rode him until she came and for a brief, beautiful moment she was able to see his face.

When she came down, and the rush of endorphins was pulsing through her body, she snatched the blade she’d secreted in the hem of her lingerie, reached up, and slit his throat with a certain swipe. He didn’t make much noise, they never did, but he did fight, bless his heart. Bucking and gasping as his hands clawed wildly for his throat. Like he was going to be able to unseat her and call for a thing. Silly thing. There wasn’t enough time for that, and she soothed him with little clucks and coos as the life drained out of him. As the blood bubbled over and stained the sheets, and she could dip her fingertips in it and trail it along the naked skin on her body.

*

She thought she was going to kill him.

She really did.

She’d enrolled in college like normal girls, even though she wasn’t normal at all.

He’d been sitting at the table next to her in the library minding his own business. She liked the color of his skin for some reason, it was olive but not. Nearly translucent. She could see blue veins and purple and yellow blemishes and it was the most beautiful thing that she’d ever seen. She immediately wanted to know what he looked like as a corpse.

He didn’t even spare her a glance, so she had to go out of her way to force conversation.

“Excuse me,” she said in her best Betty Cooper voice. “Would you happen to know where the poetry section is? I couldn’t find it earlier.”

He’d looked surprised when his eyes met hers, like he’d only just realized she was there. “Uh yeah.” He flicked his pen towards a sign hanging between two stacks. “Right there.”

Irritation pricked at her skin and she felt her fingernails digging their place into the scars on her palms.

“Right.” Silence hung between them. She stared at him while he went back to ignoring her. People didn’t ignore her. That’s not how this worked. It was never how it worked. She opened her mouth again. “Would you like to go grab a coffee or something?”

Such an innocent question, but she couldn’t bring herself to ask him if he wanted to fuck her.

His eyebrows shot up into his hairline and he fixed her with an unreadable look. One that made her want to squirm in her seat a little. The smallest, most irrationally adorable smirk tugged up at his mouth as his eyes fell back to the book open in front of him. “I have to finish this, but thank you.”

He turned her down. To her face, and with a fury the likes she’d never known, she grabbed her things and stormed away.

*

It took a week before he accepted her offer for coffee, and even then, when she asked him if he’d like to study with her in private, he’d said no. It was infuriating, and maddening and she couldn’t begin to understand it. Jughead was smart, and had endless things to say. He was passionate and informed, but also quiet. It went on for weeks and weeks, and she thought that she’d never get an opportunity to get him alone. After two months of countless conversation, he hesitantly asked if he could kiss her at a relatively private table in the library. She’d been surprised, but the angry lion roared to life in her chest. 

She’d won. She’d finally done it.

He kissed her.

He didn’t mash her lips with his. Didn’t try and shove his tongue down her throat. His kiss was soft, sweet, and brief.

He’d pulled away and asked her to dinner.

*

She ended her evening the way that she ended every evening: scrolling through Jughead’s social media to see if he’d posted something new. He hadn’t, but he had been tagged in something regarding a project for his lit class.

The post was from a girl she didn’t recognize, but when she clicked on her profile, and then spent the next hour combing through every bit of her social media, she couldn’t help but feel anger. Especially at  
that tag, and the notification underneath it that Jughead Jones liked it. 

He liked it. 

Was that the kind of guy he was? The kind who just went around liking other girls social media posts after he kissed another girl days before?

And this girl was clearly interested in him romantically, because why else would she do something like that?

That’s the only reason why someone would do anything like that. Ever.

She’d never killed a woman before, but then again, there was a first time for everything.

With a huff, she made vocal her displeasure with him about the social media incident. He seemed confused when he said, “I don’t know, she just tagged me in it. It didn’t mean anything.”

It didn’t mean anything. How could he say that? She vented about it for another hour.

“Seriously, it’s not that deep, it was just a like. Not everything has to have a meaning behind it,” he insisted much to her chagrin, but in the end, he never did anything like that ever again. 

*

The first time they had sex she thought that was it. That is was going to be over.

Everything was the same.

She come out in her wig, she’d fucked him until she came. She’d wrapped her hand around the knife handle.

But she never pulled it out.

Something about the look on his face as he looked up at her.

So lost. So intent, made her stop.

Made her move her hips until he finished, until he clutched her tight in his afterglow.

When they were lying in bed together, wrapped in each other’s arms instead of his blood, he’d given her a sleepy smile, flicked her wig with his fingertips and said, “I like you as a brunette.”

*

He did like the wig.

She was sure of it.

And she liked pressing marks into his skin, and watching color well up on the too thin stretch over bone. There was so much blood in him, and it was hers. All hers.

Hers to do with whatever she liked.

And she did.

She used him until he was worn through, worn out. Until he could barely keep his eyes open. Then she’d hold him, cradle him, soothe him until he fell into a dreamless sleep.

Her beautiful boy.

She still hated all men.

All except Jughead.

*

She had to correct him sometimes.

Sometimes he’d do or say something that was just so incredibly stupid.

The girl in the quad who asked for directions? Could have easily asked her, and he didn’t have to respond. That was wrong.

The time he said that he disliked Nancy Drew? That was just bad taste.

It was the man’s condition to be stupid sometimes, even someone as smart as her Juggy was. He took instruction beautifully, and there was nothing quite as pretty as the bruises on his skin. Her bruises on his skin.

*

It was unfortunate that they’d run into Chuck Clayton, because that’s where things had gone wrong. Chuck Clayton had shoved Jughead while they were passing in the courtyard. Had knocked him down. Had sent his books flying. Had sent him skittering after them. Chuck Clayton had touched Jughead. Had hurt him. Had humiliated him.

Didn’t he know who she was?

Didn’t he know who Jughead belonged to?

“Too bad there freak. Maybe watch where you’re going next time.”

*

She walked into the frat party dressed to kill.

Wig.

Enough eyeliner to make her unrecognizable.

Miniscule black dress.

It was like she was begging for someone to approach her.

She ignored everyone, everything, everyone except for the man leaned against the wall surrounded by pathetic girls vying for her attention. She bypassed them all, walking directly up to Chuck and taking the drink from his hand. She slammed it while his eyes roved her body. When she was done, she dropped the cup to the floor and set her gaze on him. “Do you want to go upstairs?”

He’d given her a satisfied grin as he nodded. She took his hand and the group wolf whistled as she led him upstairs and away from the party. She took off her clothes. She stuffed his own underwear in his mouth and fucked him.

She didn’t wait for her orgasm to kill him.

Those didn’t belong to them anymore.

Only to Jughead.

The spray of blood. The feeling of it once more on her skin was a high like she’d never felt before.

It could be like this forever.

Her and Jughead.

She’d protect him.

Make sure nothing happened to him.

Her beautiful boy.

When she left, she’d changed back to regular Betty. Completely unrecognizable from the femme fatale who’d walked through the door. No one noticed her exit. No one recognized her as anything other than the wallpaper. Just like she’d planned.

*

News of Chuck’s murder traveled around campus quickly, as well as the description of the last women he’d been seen with. Betty was happily picking the tomatoes off her sandwich on her dorm room bed, Jughead at her side. He’d been quiet. Way more quiet than he usually was.

When he finally spoke it was hollow. It didn’t sound like him. Not the him that he usually sounded like when he spoke to her. “Hey Betty?”

“Yeah?” she chirped.

“You didn’t have anything to do with Chuck’s murder did you?”

She looked at him for a few minutes. He squirmed under her gaze. He was always clever, but she didn’t think that he’d be that smart.

“What do you mean.”

“The description of the girl, it was exactly what you look like when we…”

He didn’t finish. He didn’t need to.

So he’d worked it out.

She wasn’t angry. Quite the opposite. He knew now. There didn’t have to be anymore secrets. They could share this. They could share everything.

She beamed at him. “Of course I did.” He swallowed thickly and his eyes flitted away from her. She brought her hands to his face. He flinched at her touch, his breath coming a little bit faster. “I did it for you. For what he did to you.”

“I… I didn’t want you to do that. I would never want you to kill someone. That’s crazy!”

“It’s crazy that I want to take care of you? I’ll always take care of you.”

He was pulling away as she was pulling him closer.

“No matter what happens,” she said as she snuggled into his chest. “I’ll always take care of you.”

*

He ran from her after that.

Just… disappeared.

And she had spent the last five years looking for him. Killing any person she could remotely find that looked anything like him. She’d killed them all, and it wasn’t enough. Never enough.

Didn’t he understand that this wasn’t how it worked?

That he belonged to her?

He didn’t get to run away from her. He didn’t get to try and separate them. He belonged to her. He was hers and hers alone. No one else’s. She’d had done everything for him. Given him everything. Couldn’t  
he see what a gift he’d been given? How it was meant to be?

Them together.

She did everything for him. It was always him. Always.

Maybe she was more like her father than she thought.

Except she wasn’t going to sit in some town in New York and kill for a daughter who wasn’t interested.

Oh no.

That wasn’t enough.

Jughead was hers. And she was going to make sure that he stayed hers. Forever.

*

He woke up with a start, coming too violently.

His lungs were heaving. His heart racing. In his dreams he’d seen bright green eyes and blonde hair. Black and Blue. So many colors. So much her. Of the perfect girl. The girl of his dreams. Who turned out to be the girl of his nightmares.

Next to him his wife lay curled into his side. Sleeping soundly, her dark hair tickling his arm.

It had taken him a long time to be able to come to terms with her hair. It was black, black like the wig Betty used to wear. But Veronica was nothing like Betty. There was sadness sure, and there was pain and despondency from what her father did, but Veronica was nothing but exactly who she said was and Jughead had fallen for her effortlessly.

They were both running from something.

Both running from their pasts. From what the people closest to them had done to others.

The nightmares had been coming more frequently then, and he found himself being more and more anxious every time he walked out the front door. Like she was watching him somehow. Like she had found him.

*

He walked into his house to find it quiet. Too quiet.

He called for Veronica but was met with nothing. Nothing at all except the eerie still.

Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.

It took almost until a ghost walked around the corner for him to know exactly what it was.

An angel dressed in black lace.

She wasn’t wearing a wig this time.

Maybe she didn’t need it, but he’d recognize her anywhere.

Betty was here.

Betty had found him, and he had no idea what she was going to do.

“VERONICA?” he yelled into the house, hoping, begging that she’d answer. That she’d just gone out for the day and she hadn’t been home when Betty had gotten there. Because Betty was capable of anything.

“Hello Juggy. Did you miss me? I missed you.”

“Veronica?!” he called again, side stepping away from Betty towards the hallway that would take him farther into the house.

She stepped in his way.

“I wouldn’t be worried about her if I were you. She can’t do much talking anymore.”

Her meaning was clear, and only when he looked at her a little more carefully did he notice the dripping blood coming from the knife in her hand.

“Oh god no,” he whispered.

Veronica was dead.

“Sad, Jughead. I thought you’d be happy. She was not nearly good enough for you.”

“That’s not something you get to decide.”

Her face brightened like he’d said something funny. Her head turned, angled, and he thought it might keep going all the way around until it was backwards. “Did you forget Jughead? Did you forget that your mine?”

“I don’t belong to anyone, Betty. You need help. You need to talk to someone about this.”

“I don’t need anything but you, but you left me.”

“I did it for a reason. I didn’t want any of this.”

“I did this for you!” she screamed with tears in her eyes. “We were supposed to be together. It was perfect. I made sure that it was perfect and you ruined it.”

He eyes were bouncing around furiously, looking for a place to escape. Looking for a route out of this once more. “I didn’t ask for this. All I wanted was a normal relationship, a normal life and I knew I’d never be able to have that with you. Killing people is fucked up. You’re unhinged.”

“It’s unhinged that I love you? That I want you to be with me?”

“You didn’t want to be with me Betty. You wanted to own me.”

“How can you say that?”

“You killed someone,” he replied forcefully. “Relationships aren’t meant to be painful. A person shouldn’t have to deal with the vilification of everything they do. They shouldn’t have to worry about being hurt because they talked to a member of the opposite sex or liked something on Instagram. Of being attacked because YOU felt like you were wronged for some reason. What we had was abusive. Caring about those kind of things, is narcissisticly unfounded. We never had trust, and so we never truly were.” 

“You’re wrong. You still love me.”

No, he hadn’t loved her since the minute he found out she’d killed someone. “No I don’t,” he swore.

“Yes you do, and it’s okay. I’m going to take care of you.”

“No. You are not. I don’t want to be with you. You need help.”

“You're lying. Men always lie.”

“I’m not. You’re toxic Betty.”

“YOU’RE LYING!” she screamed.

He took a step back, trying to find his footing, his mind. What was he going to do? Where was he going to go. Was he even going to make it out of this alive? He didn’t think so. If it was anyone other than her then maybe, but it was her. Betty. Beautiful Betty. Toxic Betty.

At least if she killed him, all of this would be over.

It all happened so fast. She was on him, on top of him. The knife sliding into his abdomen before he knew what to do. Before he knew it he was on the floor, staring up at the ceiling while the life rushed out of him.

He died hearing nothing but Betty’s voice.

“Now we can be together forever.”

*

Trev Brown was having a bad day. A really bad day. He’d been turned down for the dream job of a lifetime, and all he wanted was to have a drink and then maybe crawl under the covers for the next few hours. He had been staring morosely at his drink for what seemed like a century, and nothing seemed to be getting better.

From his right her heard a voice. “If you stare at that drink any harder I’ll expect that it’ll do tricks.”

He lifted his gaze to see a beautiful blonde girl sitting on a stool a few down from him. She was way too put together to be in a place like this, but then again, it wasn’t his place to judge.  
He swallowed. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

She gave him a brilliant smile. “Don’t apologize, I was just trying to lighten the mood.” She paused for a minute before extending her hand to his. “Betty Cooper.”

He returned the gesture, giving her hand a little shake before setting them back to the bar. “Trev Brown.”

She looked at him curiously for a minute before fixing on his lips.

“Well Trev. You have a great smile.”


End file.
